The Missing Girl (14 page)

Ha-ha! I know what it means. It means gone, good-bye, invisible, which is a big word, which I can rhyme funny, like invisible, delisible, halisible. I know how to do rhyme
190

stuff, because
I am not
dumb. I can read. I can read Nancy Drew. I can read Frog and Toad. I can read the funnies. Mrs. Sokolow my teacher says, “Good for you, Fancy, you’re working hard at your reading. I’m proud of you.”

But today she can’t say, “Good for you, Fancy,” because everybody stays home from school, and that makes me mad as boiling hornets. My family is
sooo s
tupid. Stupid all of them. Stupid Autumn! Why does she disappear?

Beauty my sister wiped my mouth that was all spitty, and she said, “Come on, Fancy, cool off. Don’t give me that look, okay? We’re all staying home today. Just be good and don’t get people upset.”

Right! Best day of the week, Monday, and no school.

Right! Mommy doesn’t go to work. Right! Nathan my cousin doesn’t go away to New Hampshire with Stevie my sister. Right! And the telephone is ringing and never stopping. Everything is crazy.

191

MONDAY EVENING: ’FESS UP

THE DOOR OPENS. “Hello,” he says. He’s carrying a chair.

You’re sitting on the cot. Your feet are on the floor. Your hands are biting into each other.

He puts down the chair. “Did you miss me?” he asks.

“Did you miss me today?” He puts his hands on his hips, and he smiles his half smile at you. “Come on, Autumn,

’fess up.”

Slowly you shake your head.

“Oh, oh, oh,” he says, playfully. “You’re teasing me. I know you missed me. Alone here all day? You missed me.”

He sits down on the chair and pats his legs. “Come here,”

192

he says. “Come over here and sit with Daddy.
Come on
,”

he says.

Your heart is going
booom booom booom booom.
You’re going to have a heart attack. You’re going to die. Will your family ever know what happened to you? You remember all the times you played Dead Person, so you could make up the story of how your sisters and parents would cry and say how much they loved you and how sorry they were for not being nicer to you.

“Right here,” he says.

You sit on his lap.

He takes off your sneakers. He kisses your feet.

193

MONDAY EVENING: IN

NATHAN’S TRUCK

BEAUTY SAT WITH her face pressed to the side window as Nathan slowly steered his pickup truck past the old opera house and over the North Branch bridge.

“What time is it?” her father asked. He was sitting between them.

“Seven thirty, Dad,” Beauty said.

He nodded. They had been driving around Mallory for over an hour. Futile, really. Did they think they’d just come across Autumn strolling down some side street, or waiting for them in front of their school? But they had to do something. It was too awful to go on sitting at home, looking at one another, all of them thinking their own sep-194

arate, terrible thoughts.

Beauty sat forward, peering into the darkness, willing herself to believe that nothing awful had happened to her sister, that the child had run away. Which was bad, but not horrendous. After all, how far could she get on foot? That little chub was not an athlete.

Say she slept in a field last night. Say she realized how silly she’d been. Say they’d find her tonight, maybe on Route 11, walking back toward Mallory, tired, but glad to be found. Say all that, and try to believe it.

195

TIMES STAR

Established 1899

Tuesday morning edition

“I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

POLICE SEEK INFORMATION

ON MISSING MALLORY GIRL

Mallory—Police are looking for information that would lead to the whereabouts of a Carbon Street child who was reported missing late Sunday evening. Autumn Herbert, 11, was last seen Sunday morning, when she left her home at approximately 11 A.M., according to Detective Kurt Brantley of the Mallory Police

Department. Detective Brantley said the 5th-grade girl was reported missing by her dis-traught mother. So far police have been unable to locate anyone who has seen her since she left her home on Carbon Street.

Detective Brantley described the girl as 5'2", weighing 135 pounds, with waist-length brown hair and hazel eyes. She was last seen wearing
196

blue jeans with embroidered flowers on the back pockets, a yellow T-shirt, a red jacket, and white sneakers with a red blaze on the heel, Brantley said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Brantley at the Mallory Police Department (555-3166) or call Crime Stoppers (555-3513).

197

TUESDAY MORNING: SLEEPING

AND CRYING AND SINGING

HE’S GONE, AND you’ve been sleeping. You had a dream about Poppy and Fancy, and they were talking to you, and you were happy. And then you woke up.

All morning, when you’re not sleeping, you’re crying.

You think S&C
.
When you’re not S&C, you peel strips of wallpaper. You peel carefully, trying to peel off whole sec-tions with the sailing ship that reminds you of that song Poppy sings, the one that always makes you smile and tear up at the same time.

“‘Four strong winds that blow lonely,’” you sing, “‘seven seas that run high.’” Your voice wobbles, but you go on.

“‘All these things that won’t change, come what may. Well,
198

our good times are all gone—’” You never really thought about those lines before, but now the words make a jagged lump in your stomach, and you go back to peeling wallpaper, and keep T&F—trying and failing—to get yourself up on the windowsill.

You curl up on the cot, and you’re crying again. You hold yourself, and you cry and cry, and your eyes ache, and your face is all tight and swollen. And you remember how Poppy always told you,
Crying don’t do you one bit of
good and plenty of not good.

Then and there, you make up your mind. You’re not going to cry again.

Later, you find yourself wishing he’d bring you an apple.

Wishing he’d let you watch TV.

Wishing he’d take you outside, even for five minutes.

And you find yourself thinking how you’ll ask him for these favors in your nicest voice, and how he’ll say
yes,
yes,
and
yes
.

199

TUESDAY EVENING:

MY ADVENTURE

HELLO! HERE I am with The Urge, because I had an adventure, and when Autumn my sister isn’t disappeared anymore, I’ll tell my adventure to Mrs. Sokolow my teacher, and she’ll say, “Fancy, good for you! Stand up here in front of the class and tell everyone your adventure.”

And I will! I’ll tell everybody I was in a car with two police, and we drove around different streets, and the man police said, “Honey, keep looking out the window, okay? And tell us if you see anybody that talked or acted funny with you and your sister.”

And then the lady police asked me a bazillion ques-200

tions, like, “Where did you go with your sister? What places? What did you two do? Did anybody talk to you?”

I told her lots of people talk to us, and sometimes we go to the candy store, and sometimes we go to the park, and I feed the cute little baby ducks with bread that the nice man gives me, and baby ducks are
sooo
cute.

I was just saying nice things, but the lady police said the F-swear, and the man police said, “Laura, please,” and the lady police said, “Chris, we’re not going to get anything worthwhile from her.”

Which meant me, and she thought I didn’t know, but I did, and when I go back to school again, I’m going to tell everyone about going in the police car, even Kevin Farley, who just shakes his head all day long and doesn’t like me.

And Mrs. Sokolow my teacher will say, “Good for you, Fancy. You had an adventure!”

201

TUESDAY EVENING: FIDDLEHEADS

HE NOTICES THE red bumps on your hands. He says, “What’s that rash on your hands?” and you say it’s probably from being under the blanket without a sheet.

He brings you a sheet. He wants you to say thank you.

You say it.

He wants you to say he’s a nice man. You say it.

You ask if you could have a pillow, too. He says he’ll think about it. “If you’re a good girl, maybe.”

He puts you on his lap.

You go away, you float out of your body and swim along the ceiling and float right out the window, and you’re with Poppy in his truck, taking a ride to find fiddleheads, which
202

Poppy likes to do every spring. Fiddleheads are like free vegetables, and you’re the one who most likes to go with Poppy to find them down by the creek, where the ferns grow in the marshy places.

Mommy is always happy when you and Poppy bring back a bag of the funny coiled little green things. “They charge eight bucks a pound for them things at the market,” she says, kissing Poppy on the cheek because he’s so smart. And she cooks them with cabbage and carrots and makes a nice gravy, and you and your sisters and Mommy and Poppy all sit down and are so nice and happy together.

203

WEDNESDAY MORNING:

BORED LONELY

HE OPENS THE door and crooks his finger. You pick up the pail. He walks you down the stairs, his hands on your shoulders.

After he takes you back to the room, he brings you food. He spreads the newspapers and makes the tablecloth joke. He puts down a small box of cornflakes, a glass of water, and a banana. He doesn’t like milk, and he won’t buy it. He watches you eat the dry cornflakes. When you’re done, he says, “Was it good?”

“Yes,” you lie. You’re still hungry. You’ll be hungry all day.

“How about a smile?” he says.

204

You make a smile.

“Nice,”
he says. “You should always smile.” He smoothes his tie. He’s wearing pressed pants, a blue shirt with white stripes, a blue flowered tie, a black cardigan sweater. His face is all shaved and clean. His hair is combed neatly. If you didn’t know, you’d think he was a teacher or a minister.

He pets your hair, then he looks at his watch, and he says, “You be a good girl while I’m gone.” You don’t say anything. “Are you going to be a good girl while I’m gone?” he asks. You say, “Yes.”

He pets your hair again or maybe he doesn’t, because he starts twisting your hair around his hand. He twists it and twists it, until you cry out, “You’re hurting me.”

Later, you’re so bored, so lonely, you find yourself:

• looking forward to going downstairs

(someplace other than this room)

• wondering about supper (maybe there’ll be something different)

• thinking about his return.

Thinking about his return?
And then it hits you. You’re getting used to being a prisoner.

205

WEDNESDAY, MID-MORNING:

FREAKS

SITTING ON THE floor in the living room, Beauty was staring blankly at a TV show in which two women were yelling at each other about the man sitting between them. It was a freak show, hair falling around the faces of the furious women, their hands clawing the air, while the man sat there, his arms folded, a little smile on his face.

This was the third day Autumn had been missing. The third day Beauty and her sisters had stayed home from school. Beauty had made the decision. “We can’t go to school. We wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything.”

By now they had all stopped crying. They roamed the house, restless, or stared at the TV. They forgot meals, but
206

neighbors brought them food, or they ate popcorn and chips. They were in waiting mode. Waiting for the police, waiting for someone, for
anyone
to bring them Autumn, or at least news of her. And silently Beauty prayed,
Good
news, please. Make it good news.

The phone rang, and Beauty leaped up, although it was probably just Jane Russo, the reporter from the Mallory paper, who called a few times every day to ask if they’d heard anything.

“What is it with you people?” a man said on the other end of the line. “What’d you do with her? You bunch of freaks, you shitty people, you child abusers, you better—”

Beauty slammed down the phone. She was shaking.

207

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON:

TOUGH GUY

THAT FIRST DAY, when he led you up the stairs like a dog on a leash? You thought he was taking you hostage. You were young then.

Was it Monday or Tuesday when you imagined yourself leaping into the air and karate kicking straight through the window?
Ka-booom!
You imagined yourself sailing out, landing on your toes, taking off for home. You were young then.

You ball up your fists and bang on the window. “Break, damn it,” you scream. The window stares back at you with a blank face. Like his face, you think.

208

You trot around the room. You’re a horse. Around you go.

Once, twice, three times, six times, ten times.

You’re a kickboxer. You kick the cot with each pass.

You’re a tough guy. You run, smashing your hand against the wall. Your hand hurts, but you’re a tough guy.

You trot faster, wall to wall to wall, kicking, screaming, smashing.

209

WEDNESDAY EVENING: WHEN . . .

YOU HEAR HIM outside the door . . .

you see the door knob turning . . .

you watch the door opening . . .

your eyes swing around the room, corner to corner to corner, as if there’s someplace to hide.

There isn’t.

You don’t move. Your hands bite into each other.

He’s carrying the chair.

210

WEDNESDAY EVENING: WHAT

DOES HE WANT?

THE MAN STANDS at the sink, washing dishes and listening to the sound of her little feet above his head.

He’s read about men who do bad things to little girls. He’s not like them. He’s just a lonely man. He’s always been lonely, except for eight years ago when he also had a little girlfriend. He’s tried to obliterate her and her red curly hair from his memory. It ended badly. That little girl wasn’t nice.